What to See
Highlights at Merriments include a walled garden in formal style with a quiet rill running through it. See the silver birch glade where crocuses add colour in spring. There is a wild garden area with a hide for enjoying the local bird life, and a Tropical Border with lush displays in late summer.
One of the best features at Merriments are the borders, created with colour-themes in mind. Other enjoyable features include a bog garden and a pair of ponds linked by a dry stream-bed where primulas and alliums grow in lush abundance.
Another interesting garden area is the Blue Gravel Garden, with self-seeded grasses and verbenas, where delphiniums and acanthus thrive early in the year. A complete contrast is the Hot Border, planted so that as the summer goes on the colours get hotter! Near the entrance is a yew circle, with conveniently located holes in the hedges to create peepholes over a gentle canal.
The garden is sheltered by high hedges, giving it the air of a secret garden, sheltered from the outside world. This sheltered environment helps create a garden with a long season for enjoying scent, colours, and texture of a wide variety of plants.
Most of the plants you see - including some of the more unusual varieties - are available for sale in the nursery. Merriments is an excellent resource for inspiration and planning how to create your own garden, and they also offer a garden-planning service.
Merriments has frequently appeared in gardening magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, and has been featured on BBC Gardeners World. Pre-booked guided tours are available, as are evening tours after normal garden hours.
I should add one final note. When I visited in April the garden had been experiencing a late spring due to unseasonal cold weather, and some areas of the garden where off limits to visitors because the ground was still wet. The woman operating the entrance kiosk offered to let me view the garden for half price simply because not all areas were available to view. Now, that's good customer service.
